There is no forever
by Gabriel-San
Summary: Bolt is smitten with his kitten. Mittens, however, seems somewhat... less so. Bolt's schemes dig for a reason, the author of the ice in her eyes and on her heart. Along the way, they both must confront forever.


-1**There is no forever…**

_Author note: If you haven't seen the movie yet (And why not, eh?) stop reading right now. This takes place after the movie. It's a little look at Bolt and Mittens, in a relationship of some type. So… It's not quite Bolt x Mittens. Just read on. You'll see._

Life was sweet indeed for the former stars of the hit action/adventure television show _Bolt_. Not because they were swimming in money or riding around in limos. It was sweet because they had escaped. They had fled the movie business following the fire at the studio, the heads of which were only too happy to dump piles of cash on the family to make the incident quietly go away. No lawsuit, no contract haggling, no extended minutiae arguments in court. Just lots of money, post-taxes, and assurances that no one would say anything.

They pulled up stakes, the five of them. Moved from Hollywood into a nondescript bit of farmland in the heart of the corn belt. It was a nice place, to be sure. Modern house with all the conveniences, barn, good acreage. No one would ever suspect they were anything but ordinary people. So they enjoyed their little patch of anonymity. At least, on the surface.

Mittens the black and white cat, one of two new additions to the family, carried a secret discord in her heart. It had been growing slowly, silently, ever since the deal had been struck. She had been vaguely aware of it before, during her mad adventure. But it had never really stricken her as sharply as it had when she came to see she was going to stay. To have another family again. All because of him.

In truth, she was miserable because of the author of her new life of comfort. Bolt. The dog who had kidnapped her from a life of bluff and intimidation. Who had dragged her across the nation on a dangerous and foolhardy quest, guided by the belief that he had super powers. They had fought, conflicted, ignored, trusted and grown together. They had made the impossible journey and come through, alive and seeming better for it, on the other side. But what had grown in her gnawed at her, like the hunger she used to feel. It ripped at her insides and thrashed about, ever keeping her aware of its presence.

"I can't stand it…" She muttered darkly to herself, hidden in the old barn's rafters, away from prying eyes and ears. Away from discovery. Away from him. "Everything. Every word. Every movement. Every little thing gets to me. It's horrible. He's always there, always around, always waiting. I can't take it. I can't stand it. Because I know, I know he loves me…"

- - -

Bolt had never felt more alive. All his life had been a lie. He had been too young to remember the casting, the studio decision, the new life he had been dropped into. His earliest memories were of Penny. So he knew to trust her. Believed in her implicitly. He had followed her into saving the world. Or so he thought. He never did any of the things he thought. Everything had been scripted in advance. To leave him always the conquering hero.

He had no idea what reality was. What pain, hunger and suffering were. His crash course could have killed him. His painfully naive and intentionally stunted mind would have killed him. He might have gone right on believing that Styrofoam sapped his strength, and if he remained clear of it long enough he could fire lasers from his eyes and superbark holes into walls. Then there was her.

Every time, without fail, when he thought of her, he could only sigh. Mittens. A would-be shakedown artist. He had kidnapped her, and now he could admit to himself that was what he had done, and taken her away, across the country. He had wanted to get back to Penny, and thought he needed a cat to take him to Calico. But after a time, and after his revelation, he kept her with him. Right at his size. He had become a real hero for her. She had made him something more than he had been. Had taught him all the things he was never allowed to learn. She had given him everything. And that was why.

He was utterly smitten with her. Just her name made his knees weak and his eyelids droop pleasantly. Whenever she spoke, a hundred violins played, no matter what others said about her voice. When he felt her clawless paws touch and part of him he felt ready to die, no other experience possibly able to match it in the whole world. He would do anything for her. His desire had never come out in words. He couldn't find the right ones to express the full depths of his emotion. So if not by words, then by deeds. As Cyrano said once, "I am going to be a storm- A flame- I need to fight whole armies all alone; I have ten hearts; I have a hundred arms; I feel too strong to war with mortals- BRING ME GIANTS!"

Bolt never fought with giants. He wasn't that type. Battle was something his old self did. Or thought he did. But he had been in remarkable physical shape. Though his antics were aided by special effects, he had been quite an acrobat and master of dexterity. So while he no longer brought down buildings or moved mountains, he could leap and tumble like a professional. Every move he made, when he had a mind to, was the picture of grace, the very heart of beauty of form, a striking example of skill put to use.

He made certain that every day, at least once, but more often more, he performed some routine or another for Mittens, pouring his heart and soul into the activity. He would tumble across the floor and walk on his forelegs, before executing a back flip and landing on one hind leg. Or leap from one end of the couch while spinning around in the air, intentionally missing the other end and landing with a tuck and roll. These things and more, he would do in full view of Mittens, while Rhino cheered him on from the sides, ever impressed by the antics. But, he noted, Mittens seemed to barely notice. She watched, and focused, and even smiled. But she didn't applaud. She smiled, she shook her head and then stepped away.

After a few weeks of simply being smiled at and left on his own, Bolt was ready to take it beyond simple tricks. He wanted a reaction. He wanted it to be big and impressive and unmistakable. These were the giants he would war with. These were the dangers he would brush aside. He had to plan. Doing something stupidly dangerous to impress the cat he wasn't supposed to love sounded entirely reasonable, even when it necessitated the construction of a ramp, flaming hoop, and a makeshift unicycle. And then a water tank. And a springboard. But nothing else. The plan was already ridonculous enough.

Mittens had no idea what her canine compatriot had in store for her. She only knew he sometimes left the house at night and returned before Penny awoke, leaving her none the wiser. She also knew that he was working on something big. She had seen him covering various wooden or metal objects with straw, or a tarp, or whatever he could lay his paws on. She also noted, to her relief and modest worry, that he had stopped performing for her. She wasn't treated to his stunt show every day, which was a great comfort. But now she had to deal with the gnawing question: Why?

She, most unfortunately, found out one day, when Penny and her mother had gone to town for shopping and socialization. Normally they took Bolt, but he had been sleeping deeply, and both agreed not to wake him. It had been a ruse, however. He sprang up as soon as the car had pulled away, and dashed out to perform some act or another. Though she heard the sounds of construction, large-scale construction, Mittens refused to look. She knew she would regret it. And in all honesty, she didn't trust herself to watch Bolt actually building something. It was one thing to see him doing acrobatic tricks, but another to watch him working his muscles, straining to lift or stretching after a bit of activity. Oh she didn't want to see how handsome he looked while she was set on despising him.

She was forced to look eventually, though, when her television-obsessed housemate, Rhino, rolled up in his little plastic ball and announced, with imitation fanfare, "Bolt, the be-awesome super dog, requests the presence of one lovely Mittens, for a new and exciting performance that will be, in my totally unbiased opinion, FULLY AWESOME!" The message delivered, the little brown hamster rolled out of the house and into the farmyard. That was Mitten's cue to hop up and dash out to see what new madness was being wrought.

Madness was the only way to describe what she found when she got out into the main farmyard. A hastily-assembled collection of scrap wood and metal had been tossed together into a passable imitation of a giant, unwieldy-looking ramp, which concluded in a springboard, with a hoop positioned just ahead of it. A hoop that was on fire. Beyond it, positioned in what was most probably the intended landing-zone was a tub of water. At the top of the wooden monstrosity sat Bolt, with a one-wheeled platform doing duty as a probable unicycle. "Bolt, what is all this?"

"Mittens, I've been a lot of things. Bold, awesome, adventurous. Now, I want to be sincere. Mittens, I can only hope you understand what it means when I launch myself off of this ramp." The white canine began standing the cycle up on its single wheel, attempting to get onto it while it stood.

"Let it begin! Let it begin!" Rhino chanted animatedly from the sideline, bouncing up and down in his plastic ball.

"No! Are you programmed to go insane every so often? You ca-" Mittens was wasting her breath. The unicycle mounted, Bolt started down the ramp, mouth open, tongue out, breeze ruffling his fur beautifully. Mittens made a mental note to be stricken with awe at a later time, as she threw herself through the air with a mighty leap, crashing into Bolt and knocking him clean off the cycle, which continued without him. It sped off the end of the springboard, caught fire as it passed through the hoop and fell with a splash into the pool of water, partly. The single wheel flamed and spun, hanging over the edge of the tub.

"Well, it almost made it. Maybe if I had actually been on it… Something to think about for next time if I need to try this again." Bolt looked over at the slowly-burning rubber wheel and stroked his chin thoughtfully.

Mittens could only gawk at the apparently-insane dog beneath her. Without thinking of the ironic nature of the statement, she shouted, "Again? What? Are you mad?"

There was no hesitation. Bolt's improvisationally-active mind caught the statement and made just the right response for the situation. "You bet I'm mad, baby! Mad about you!" That was what he had been waiting for. The right words, the right action. She cared enough to save him from something dangerous! He quickly leaned in and planted his lips against her own, holding the kiss until he felt Mittens stiffen up in appropriate surprise.

Mittens gawked at Bolt, who was sitting down, calm and nonchalant, waiting for the reaction that was forthcoming. There were several that he was waiting for, which Mittens could very well perform. She could fly into a bare-pawed rage and start attacking without mercy, despite having no way to make it really hurt; she could become supremely indignant and slap at him; she could stalk away in an embarrassed or furious huff; or she might, perhaps, reciprocate the action, or at least the sentiment. That last one was what Bolt wanted. The others were what Bolt expected. What happened was something he could never have predicted. Mittens' body trembled, and her eyes were wide, staring hard at Bolt. They wavered between fury and sorrow, her entire being one of supreme indecision. At last, she lowered her gaze and said, "Bolt… No. Just no."

The dog looked perplexed. "What?"

"No, Bolt." Mittens began walking slowly away.

"What?" He was on his paws, one held up, caught in mid-step by his inability to bring himself to follow.

"No…" Mittens said, growing more and more distant as she walked back to the house.

Stunned, disbelieving, frozen in his position, with Rhino chattering animatedly about how impressive the stunt had almost been, he had only one last thing to say. "What?"

- - -

"I don't believe it." Later that day, with everyone back at home and things settled into a peacefully understandable routine, Bolt paced the living room, amid the din of Rhino's usual evening action television. "She said no? How could she just say no?"

"Well, everybody just says no. I mean, look at Mr. T. He always tells people to say no." Rhino chimed up from atop the couch, focused on the flickering of the magic box.

"That's a totally different situation. I wasn't offering her anything except my feelings. Something is very wrong. I know she feels for me. I mean… She made that little house for me in Las Vegas!"

"Ooh! Maybe she was kidnapped, and replaced with an evil robo-biotic duplicant!"

"No, no, she still acts like Mittens in every way but one. Ugh." Bolt stared at the ground for a moment before an idea struck him. He quickly hopped onto the couch and pressed his face against Rhino's plastic ball. "Rhino! You watch TV all the time. You must have seen something about relationships like this!"

"Well, I mean I watch all these big tough things like this. I don't really go for that kind of thing. But, I do kind of remember this one time when Julie's sister's husband's best friend's manicurist got involved with Frank's daughter's teacher, who was George's former business partner who was supposed to be dead, but came back with amnesia…"

"Rhino! What happened?"

"Oh! Well, they were getting weird and distant and couldn't concentrate on James' attempt to…" Rhino halted his tangent on seeing the glare from Bolt, cleared his throat and went on. "As I was saying, there was a big confrontation, full of demands for explanations. And it worked! They got married! Then there was the matter with the evil wedding planner…" The little hamster went on with his explanation, while Bolt was already off, knowing what to do.

"Mittens! Mittens! Where are you? Mittens!" Bolt ran around outside, sniffing the dusty ground for any slight sign of the feline. He caught her trail heading toward the often-ignored barn, running through the slightly-ajar door. "Come on! I need to talk to you!"

"Bolt." Mittens glared down from the rafters, her green eyes glowing in the low light, practically the only thing of her visible in the shadows. "You shouldn't have come here."

"Mittens, we need to talk. This is something important."

"I don't want to talk. Just leave me alone."

"Mittens, I know what I know. You were clear about how you felt in Las Vegas. And you know how I feel. We've never said anything. But I showed you everything, told you with my actions what was in my heart. At least tell me why you're changing your mind."

"Don't do this, Bolt. Don't ask. Don't think about it. Just forget everything and go back into the house."

"No! I'm not going to leave here!"

"Leave me alone, Bolt!"

"Not until you tell me why!"

"Because it's not forever!" Mittens leaped from the rafters and, with a few quick moves from different spaces along the path, landed right beside Bolt. "It won't be forever."

"F-forever? What are you talking about? I can be here for you. We live together."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

"Then what are you talking about? Talk to me, Mittens. Please."

Mittens looked down and shivered, biting her lower lip slightly before she gave a reply. "I used to have a family. A good family. A stable family. They said they'd be there forever. Then they packed it all up, took their love and their forever and left me behind."

"But I'm not going anywhere."

"Yes you are, Bolt. Someday. You don't think so now. But you're going to go away someday. You can't be here for me forever. I stopped believing in forever. If there is no such thing, then what good is love? I don't want temporary affection."

"Mittens…" Bolt went up to slowly run his face against her neck, only to have her push him away and walk towards the door.

"Don't make this harder for me. Or yourself. Just forget it. You'll live longer."

- - -

Since that night, things had been very tense in the house. Penny and her mother could feel something, some indefinable heaviness that pervaded the whole environment. It was almost tangible, yet they had no idea what might be causing it. Rhino knew, and it ate his little hamster guts up to watch Bolt and Mittens be perfunctorily kind to one another while conflict raged, unspoken, between them. Bolt always smiled, Mittens always scowled. As it had been in the beginning, but now there was new meaning behind the too-wide grin and the ice-eyed glare.

Unable to feel comfortable in the house, Bolt had taken to wandering, walking down the long dirt road from the farm and off into the thousand trails piercing the empty Midwestern distance, searching for peace of mind, comfort, answers, ideas, something. At best, he found something to roll in, which was followed by a bath; at worst, he just came home too tired to try another reconciliation doomed to failure.

Then came one trip. He had followed a worn but unpopular path, which wound through a thick stand of trees. It was autumn then, and the trees were shedding their leaves freely. But a breeze kept the trail relatively visible. It led down a winding road to some place, bordered by a high wall. A short reconnoiter revealed that the wall went all the way around, and was made of solid, unbroken brick. The only entrance was a worn, wooden gate, locked tight with a chain. The grass was overgrown all around, so much so that Bolt barely noticed the hole. A broken spot near the bottom of the gate, just enough to squeeze through.

It took some work, a few grunts, a few twists and he was through, inside the mysterious area. Just the sight of it was enough to make him gasp, never mind the smell of it. Muted, worn by time, but unmistakable. As his eyes cast over the scene, he started to think about Mittens, and her forever. She wanted forever. He wanted her. And finally, he had a way to get her.

The trip back to the house was rapid, almost as though he traveled on wings. But once he reached the house, Bolt had to wait. Play the good dog, bide his time, until dark. He gave Mittens plenty of looks, and nodded a lot. He was going to have it out with her again. And this time, it would be on his terms.

"This had better be good. We're not supposed to be out at night." Mittens was following along behind Bolt, the full moon making his white fur glow with a ghostly luminescence. Once more, she had to squash down a bit of admiration. Yes, he was lovely. But still, all too mortal.

"Trust me. This is what I've been looking for. This is the answer. I know exactly what to do about all this." Finding the path was easy. He could smell his recent passage. And, he now recognized the faint scent from behind the wall. It called to him. Told him to come. Promised him peace.

"We're really out here. Jeez. I can't believe I let you talk me into this." Mittens cringed somewhat, moving slightly closer to Bolt, and looking around at the skeletal branches above, while she slogged through the dead leaves on the ground.

Bolt dropped down at the gate and dove into the hole, wriggling as soon as his midsection hit. "Through here. This is it. This is the place I was telling you about."

"I don't know what this is all about, but nothing could…" The snide dismissal died on her lips the moment her eyes traced across the other side of the wall. After sliding smoothly through the narrow opening, she could see what there was. A field, with the occasional weed poking through the thick tufts of grass, which grew all around the upright stones and crosses all in rows. "Where did you bring me, Bolt?"

It's a pet cemetery, Mittens. Under our paws, right now, are cats, dogs, hamsters, fish, birds and all kinds of things. The ones who believed in the forever of their people, and gave it their best shot. This is where I'm going, Mittens. You were right. I was wrong. I'm going to come here. Someday, they'll have a little stone over my head. And you'll keep going on. Forever, I guess. All eternity, forever and ever, without me. It's not fair, but I accept it." Bolt slowly walked over to Mittens and laid his head against her neck. "But please, accept my temporary affection. Let me give you something, at least. How about I let you have the rest of my life? Every minute of it, from now until I go. All yours."

Mittens had no choice but to stand in dumb silence for a long while, looking at the headstones, finally catching the faint stench of death from under the soil, feeling her short fur caressed by the night breezes. Finally, she spoke, her voice thick, quiet. "The rest of your life? Not much there as far as forever goes…" Her voice dropped more, barely above a whisper spoken through held-back sobs. "But I'll take it."

The End


End file.
